Media mogul Sumner Redstone seems to be taking steps towards estate planning. In May 2014 he sold a total of $200 million worth of shares in Viacom and CBS, the two companies he chairs. He controls Viacom and CBS through National Amusements Inc., a movie theatre business where his daughter, Shari, owns 20%. His father founded the cinema chain as Northeast Theatre Corporation in 1936. Sumner took over in 1954. He got control of Viacom in 1987 and spun off CBS in 2006. While a student at Harvard during World War II, he was selected by a Japanese history professor to help decrypt Japan's military and diplomatic codes. He later lectured at Harvard Law School, Brandeis University, and Boston University School of Law, where he taught one of the first entertainment law courses. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. More »

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Next year will be the fiftieth anniversary of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek franchise, one of the longest-running American film franchises spun off from two iterations of the property on television: the progenitor, Star Trek, and its sequel series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

We are well into the swing of graduation season and sadly enough I’ve never been asked to deliver a commencement address (but I can dream, can’t I?). It just so happens that a friendly media mogul I know (not an oxymoron) gave me an advance copy of her upcoming address to the graduates, and I’ve been given permission to share it withread »

With the drop of the first trailer for Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, we now know how Tom Cruise is going to top hanging from the world’s tallest building in Ghost Protocol — by hanging from an airplane as it takes off into the sky.

It looks like there’s no stunt too dangerous for Cruise when it comes to the read »

The key question being asked by the investors in Chinese stock market – especially the offshore investors– right now seems to be whether the administrative intervention will impact the critically needed market reforms. Most of the investors who we spoke to tend to think that the recent policy changes have added uncertainty to the reform read »

Bank and credit union examiners are especially scrutinizing the quality of financial institutions’ assets and their sensitivity to market risk, according to a recent survey of institutions that have recently undergone routine federal examinations.

Sageworks, a financial information company, also found in its survey that while many read »

It has finally happened. A powerful group of leaders in international finance, the Group of Thirty, (G30) called last week for far-reaching banking reforms to restore public trust. It opened the door to dismissal if necessary of top executives in the banking sector, new approaches to hiring and stronger roles by boards of directors “to ensure read »

Anything can be marketed – especially political candidates. As the political season starts ramping up, we are witnessing the beginning of what is sure to be a fast-paced, rapid-fire, marketing competition play out. Day-by-day, almost any candidate can be on top of the leader board with polling numbers shifting drastically. Imagine marketing a read »

When Dan Price announced that he was raising the minimum salary in his company to $70,000, it made a lot of headlines. The story of the founder and CEO of the Seattle-based credit card processor Gravity Payments drastically cutting his own salary in order to raise the standard of living of even his lowest paid employees was written about just read »

We’re still incredibly far away from the sixth season of Game of Thrones, but given that it’s currently starting to film, news about what comes next is beginning to leak. And today, there’s a bit of fantastic news from set that the show has brought on Deadwood alumni Ian McShane to take on an unspecified read »

Warner Bros./New Line/Time Warner Inc.’s new Vacation sequel/reboot was the only wide release daring to debut alongside Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation. The film opened on Wednesday with $3.8 million and earned another $2.5m on Thursday. As such, its $14.8m weekend brings its cume to $21.172m thus far. read »